


Mint Mint

by Sevent



Series: Geraskier Halloween prompts [3]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Accidental Drug Use, Fluff, M/M, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:47:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26964670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sevent/pseuds/Sevent
Summary: Geralt buys "mint" for his potions. Turns out it's not the right kind of mint. Good thing Jaskier is there to nanny him through his cat-high.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: Geraskier Halloween prompts [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1967734
Comments: 73
Kudos: 674





	Mint Mint

**Author's Note:**

> This is written for Geraskier Halloween! The trope/prompt combination: **cat eyes** \+ **only one bed** , because I'm a predictable sucker.
> 
> Also worth noting is that there's more fics in this series, and I'm posting them sort of out of order. This is one of the later ones.

“Is this all you have in store?”

“This year’s harvest wasn’t as fruitful as in past years.”

“I see. Then I hope your herbs' quality makes up for what’s lacking in quantity.”

“Master Witcher, if I may—”

As the conversation turns to stock listings and a long winded price range for every available plant, Jaskier props himself against a bare wall and starts the distracted process of flicking dirt from between his nails. There’s a strong earthy smell inside the shop that tickles his nose and the bard would rather stay where he is than sneeze up a storm. 

He watches out of the corner of his eye as Geralt takes his pick of herbs, a careful, considerate frown on his face. His supply is running low, completely empty of many key ingredients for potion brewing is what he’d said on their arrival into town. So they made a quick stop at the herbalist’s shop, Jaskier trailing along, for no other reason than to spend more time in Geralt’s company, even after their last few _rough_ escapades. 

It’s high time they part ways, but, well, it’s not like he has anything better to do—and besides, he’s become quite desensitized to the ridiculous predicaments that only seem to happen around Geralt of Rivia.

A high-paying contract looms in the near future from what they’ve read on the market notice boards, which means a troublesome beast that will demand a witcher’s full arsenal. Freshly-brewed potions, sharpened weapons, and a new armored set. All the works, for optimal results.

Jaskier finds preparations the less exciting part of witchering. Kneeling at the edge of riverbeds to untangle valuable weeds from moss and algae would actually be preferable, in his humble opinion. It paints the picture of a self-sufficient hunter, wise to nature’s gifts, and an unfortunate, broody loner because of it. Plenty of listeners respond well to a mysterious man wrapped in heroics. 

Going to market at noon and haggling for cheaper prices? There’s no charm in that. That’s making Geralt out to be a bargain buyer. A gambler. And yes, the truth is he very much _is_ that—who _doesn’t_ like a deal on rare-to-come-by goods? But the people wouldn’t listen to the _Tale of the Three-for-One Steal at Estiban’s Corner Shop._ They want blood, rites, and obscure nonsense, with just enough story to tie everything together. 

So, Jaskier waits on his perch, bored out of his mind, looking out the shop’s window. While Geralt bargains, he thinks of a better alternate story to how the White Wolf brews his beasty potions. Maybe under a new moon, that’s got some mystique to it. 

Then the witcher and the shopkeeper start shouting, and the ‘new moon’ idea dissipates utterly into forgetfulness.

“That’s not mint,” Geralt gruffs.

“It’s a variety of mint! I am not selling fallacies, this is an honest shop. It’s mint.”

The bard spots a white head of hair shaking side to side. “It’s not _mint_ mint.”

“It’s the only mint I have,” the shopkeeper says, arms crossed in obvious frustration. “And it’s the only mint that's sold in the region. So, buy it or leave it.”

Having been given no other option, Geralt gives in with a curt, “Fine,” his coin purse jingling miserably as it’s pulled reluctantly from his pocket. A few of its contents spill out onto the herbalist’s front desk to pay for the chosen herbs. 

At the coin count, the shopkeeper’s demeanor changes completely. He smiles with a victorious gleam in his eye. “Thank you, have a blessed day.”

They walk out into the market. Jaskier knows by the witcher’s quick gait that he must be displeased with settling for lesser herbs.

He jogs to catch up, asking with an airy lightness, “Are you finally done with your much-needed hunting preparations?” because the best way to cheer Geralt up is by goading him in a different direction.

Geralt sighs, his bag of herbs and roots hugged closer to his chest. “Not yet. I’ve got to mix these while they’re fresh. And it’ll take time to brew.”

“Hm, of course it will. How long exactly?”

That actually makes Geralt pause in step—which, in the middle of the street, earns a few annoyed glares—to look at where the sun hangs in the sky. If Jaskier had not been paying attention, he would have hit his nose with the back of Geralt’s skull. 

“A few hours. Well into night.”

“In that case,” the bard starts tugging the witcher with him, and that’s really only possible because said witcher allows himself to be hauled along, “How about we stay in that inn over in that corner of marketstreet for the night? From what I’ve gathered of public gossip, it’s got lovely cooks, a good reputation and—”

At the last moment, Geralt sets his foot down, effectively stopping their advance. “No, it looks fancy.”

Jaskier blinks at him, not understanding.

“It’ll cost us,” Geralt adds, “And I’m looking to _save_ coin after this contract, not splurge for it.”

“Well, I get your point. But where would you have us go instead?” Jaskier takes his hands back to wave at the town in general. “Every cheap inn we’ve passed is booked to the tits.”

That’s not exactly true. While the majority of the inns they’ve passed are indeed full, some innkeepers have plainly turned them away only to accept the next traveller that knocks on their counter. So the inns are not full, but they’re full for a witcher.

Geralt doesn’t seem bothered by it, which makes an indignant spark burst in Jaskier’s chest. He’s tried to speak to a couple of snide innkeepers first, to bamboozle them into giving them a room, but _that_ seems to bother Geralt more, so he gave that up and let it be, until now. This last place he’s suggesting _is_ expensive, but he’s also heard that it doesn’t shutter its doors at nonhumans. The innkeeper’s a dwarf, and their staff looks to be mostly halfbreeds. It would be nice _for_ Geralt to be somewhere welcoming.

Jaskier tries again. “Why don’t you let me go and separate two rooms—”

 _“No._ It’s fine.”

Another troublesome quirk of his—Geralt just won’t let the bard pay for whatever involves him, directly. If Jaskier offers to cover for things as innocuous as food and lodgings—things they _have_ to share often, anyway—Geralt throws a small fit, insisting on splitting payment every time.

At first, Jaskier didn’t bring up any issue with the arrangement. He’s a bit careless with coin, always has been, and splitting costs meant having more to spend later. 

Later being _right now._ His purse is positively bursting from the past successful busking stops, and he would gladly spend some for Geralt’s sake.

But since Geralt won’t listen to him unless he’s complaining, he voices a sardonic, “Shall I fetch my sleeping mat from Roach and go lay in the cold hard dirt for one more night? Wake up screaming again when I discover another weasel crawled into my mat _while I slept?”_

It works like a charm. 

Geralt sighs. “We’ll stop at the fancy inn.”

Jaskier takes his moping without batting an eye because _finally,_ something he can do for Geralt. Something they can _both_ enjoy. Jaskier will get a rare night of small luxuries, and Geralt will have privacy, casual acceptance, and space to work in silence. 

There’s only one unexpected oversight, really.

“I’m terribly sorry, sirs, but we’ve only one room available.”

The dwarf at the counter is incredibly earnest, apologizing twice more for the unfortunate circumstance. And he looks so _honestly_ sorry while at it, Jaskier even feels a little bad for him taking it so personally for them.

“So you’ve a room left?” He asks encouragingly of him. The dwarf innkeeper nods in confirmation. “That’ll be no trouble at all, good sir. I’ll pay for it right away.”

“But—sir, it’s just a single bed, and a narrow one at that.”

Hearing that, Geralt tries to stop him. “Jaskier—”

But he’s quicker to face the witcher with a raised brow and deliver his word. “I hardly think that’s an issue between us, don’t you think? In fact, that just might be _better._ We pay here by the bed, don’t we?”

“That’s right, sir—”

Before Geralt can say his piece, Jaskier sets his purse on the table. “Then we’ll take your last bed for one night, please.”

It’s a little more than twice the usual price at a roadside inn, and this is just for one bed. But it means, compared to their usual two-room or two-bed renting scheme, that he’s only paying a few coins more than what they usually would, together. 

Not bad, all in all. The innkeeper even offers to bring up spare quilts and pillows, should they need it for the floor, which Jaskier kindly accepts. Though, he doesn’t think they’ll need it. Him and Geralt have shared haystacks in the countryside and closet-sized rooms in the city. A narrow bed in a nice inn staffed by nice people is hardly an issue.

He tells Geralt as much on their way to their room, just in case he’s still hung up about Jaskier paying for everything. 

Which he might be, as he moves to hold his bag of herbs close, his second hand pinching the strap of his worn leather satchel tighter over his shoulder. Its noisy clinking is what fills the silent walk. That and the muffled clunk of boots over carpeted stairs.

When they reach the room and Geralt still hasn’t said anything in return, Jaskier asks, “Shouldn’t you be brewing your nasty potions?”

Geralt sets his satchel on the floor, finally sighing in acceptance. New and old purchases clatter together as the witcher pulls out a little ceramic mortar and pestle, a strange kit of crystal flasks connected by a tube, and three empty vials. 

Jaskier has absolutely no idea how any of that fits in the satchel without breaking, but he’s not the experienced witcher who has to prepare his own potions. He’s a bard and a lutist, and as such, he takes his own instrument of choice out to make sure she’s clean and tuned. 

It’s a quick and easy job so once he’s done, he comes off the bed to sit beside Geralt on the floor, watching him work.

A sharp smell penetrates his sinuses. From what he can tell, some of the herbs have already been crushed into the mortar. A dry paste now coats its bottom. It’s a curious shade of purple. And he has absolutely no idea what it’s for or what it’s even made from.

Jaskier bears no knowledge of herbal effects and how to mix anything that isn’t a drink. To him, it’s practically _magic_ how Geralt knows how much to add of every ingredient—or, really how _any_ sort of recipe is discovered and honed to perfection the way potions work. He doesn’t have the knowledge to appreciate the craft.

He still sits crouched beside Geralt, fascinated by the witcher’s bowed concentration over his kit. 

It’s a long moment before either of them says anything. Geralt is the first to break the ice.

“What is it.”

“What?” Jaskier shuffles on his feet until his legs cross into a more comfortable position. “Am I not allowed to watch? Is it another one of your witcher secrets?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh.” He had been joking, but it seems he’s stumbled into another delicate matter without meaning to. It takes a second, caught by surprise, but he tears his gaze away from the mortar. “Sorry.”

Now he feels rather awkward for having paid so much attention. He knows there’s things Geralt would prefer to keep to himself, like where his witcher keep is. But Jaskier knows the knowledge is well-guarded for good reason. He heard from Geralt himself that many of the keeps, including his own, were raided and burned by human mobs in the past century. 

If it is dangerous to know, then Jaskier would _never_ want to know.

In the interrupted moment, Geralt looks at him, his yellow eyes an armor-piercing blade. When his stare falls away, Jaskier takes it as a sign to move back. Let him brew without a set of eyes over his shoulder.

As it happens, Geralt surprises him by pointing at his work in progress. 

“This is a method many alchemists, brewers and healers use to draw out an herb’s medicinal qualities. That isn’t so much a secret, I guess.” 

Jaskier nods and props his chin on one hand, listening. The witcher goes on to explain the parts of his kit and the process in which one potion becomes another, without revealing any real secrets of the trade like the recipes of his witcher potions, or how long a potion needs to sit for before it’s ready.

It’s all very interesting. 

Geralt catches on to Jaskier’s more often than not hummed answers.

“You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you.”

“Not a clue. But it was nice to listen to. You sound like you know what you’re talking about. A real expert.”

Geralt huffs—and after a second, he scratches his nose. It almost looks bashful.

Before the witcher goes and falls back onto his reticent ways, Jaskier gestures at the purplish paste, now in a much more liquid form. “Can you tell me what that is?”

“It’s the ‘mint’.”

“And what’s mint good for?”

Geralt hums as he scrapes the mint paste onto a big flask. “That’s a more complicated question than you think. Typically you can use mint plants as relaxants. But there’s _many_ kinds of mint plants, and not all of them share the same medicinal properties. Sage, rosemary, basil, thyme—those are all mints too, just in a different branch from recognized mint names, like peppermint and catmint. None of those are _mint_ mint either.”

 _Mint mint._ Right, he’d said that in the herbalist’s shop. It had sounded a bit odd then, but Jaskier thinks he understands now. “So what’s _this_ mint you’re using?”

“I’m not sure yet. There’s so many kinds...but it shouldn’t fuck the potion up. It _is_ a mint, just not the ideal one. Might have some side effects.”

Geralt starts crushing a different plant now, preparing it for the flask.

“This one’s allspice root. It’s like a bonding agent. It keeps the potion from falling apart in the days and weeks after mixing. Heat helps too, but the root is better.”

The root gives off a weird burning smell that makes Jaskier cough and block his nose, lest he _really_ start sneezing.

“Don’t sneeze on my kit.” 

“I would— _chk_ —wouldn’t dream of it.”

He might have imagined it, but Jaskier swears he hears a laugh between his watery sniffles. 

Geralt goes on to cast a sign of fire with his fingers and lets the potion sit and do it’s thing. There’s a lot that he skipped out on explaining, but it’s all well and good. Blowing his nose, he doesn’t think brewing is right for him anyway. 

That Geralt told him anything at all is beyond exciting. He could smile for the rest of the year—or at least until the witcher next opens his mouth with a dry remark about his music playing.

For now, Geralt has no biting wit in him. He’s pouring alcohol into the rest of the empty flasks and grinding more of his herbs, content with the repetitive work. “Jaskier, this will take a while, and I can’t leave it unsupervised.”

“Is this your way of saying to leave you alone?”

Geralt grunts with a shrug, which in Jaskier’s mental catalogue of Geralt-speak means _yes,_ but it's not meant in a mean way. 

“You’ll regret it when the fumes start.”

“Oh, ew no,” Jaskier immediately stands up to grab his lute. _“You_ saying the fumes are bad doesn’t bode well. Please don’t turn the room into a stinking distillery. I might have to pay compensation.”

The dismissing handwave Geralt gives him is not encouraging. “It won’t be that bad.”

“Sure. Well _I’m_ off to make a living. Or get pelted by bread, time will tell.”

“Just come back before morning. I don’t want to get chased out of town by a mob again because you couldn’t keep your sausage in the pantry.”

 _There’s_ that biting wit. “I—you, oh I’ll think of a comeback when I get back. I have been nothing but a pillar of modesty—”

Geralt, the little shit, _snorts._ “‘Modesty’.”

“Yes! Goodbye!” 

He slams the door on the way out.

One evening of song, dance and drinks later, Jaskier is climbing the stairs at a snail’s pace, holding his head to keep it from spinning off his neck. A couple of the enthusiastic audience decided to pay him in drinks—which is fine in his book when plenty of folk are throwing in their share of coins. 

But then more people within the crowd offered a round of drinks, and the bard is never one to deny a rich-pocketed fellow from spending for his sake. So he drank a few cups of wine. Which turned to a few mugs of ale. Which then became a beer chugging challenge, drunks all around him belching out a raunchy tune in support.

His head hurts. His _throat_ hates him. He’s not going to be able to sing for at least a week. It’s good that he’s traveling with Geralt. Though that might mean jokes at his wobbly expense.

Thinking of Geralt brings up how he’d last left him—concentrated over his potions for an upcoming hunt. He hopes the witcher left a window open so the room wouldn’t still be stinking of alchemic fumes. It’s dark already, well into night. The witcher should be enjoying a good night’s rest, for once, on an actual bed of cotton and not a misshapen lump of straw-stuffed cloth. 

Gods, he can’t wait to sleep on it, even knowing Geralt will probably push him to the floor during the night. He’s a jumpy, _kicky_ sleeper, but sheepishly apologetic about it. Jaskier cannot help but forgive him. 

Once in their little room, he startles at a loud grunt. Jaskier can’t see a damn thing. The candles must have burned out while he was away and Geralt, who isn’t inconvenienced all that much by the dark, didn’t bother to light any as he worked. 

It’s as he’s swaying forward with his hands stretched out that he spots a person-shaped shadow sprawled on the ground, right where he’d left Geralt last.

“Geralt?”

The shape shudders up to sitting, slumping a bit with another muted noise. The panic that crawls up Jaskier’s throat urges him forward, not sparing a second thought that it might be dangerous for him to do so.

“Geralt, what’s wrong? What happened?” 

Something most _certainly_ went wrong. He is sure of it. It takes another minute of fumbling and tripping on his own feet to light a spare candle, and the sight that greets him is... _strange._

On better inspection, Geralt isn’t hurt. But he is hunched over himself, head tucked into his arm awkwardly. 

He lifts his head for a second and there, Jaskier notices that his pupils switch between full, black pits, and narrow cat’s eyes’ slits. He’s never seen them that narrow, actually, though Geralt’s mentioned he can control their shape at will. Why he keeps them in a human-ish shape all the time, Jaskier can’t rightly guess at, but it’s fair to say he can’t control it right at this moment, for some reason. 

The potion stand is on its side. Luckily, only one vial seems to have spilled over. The rest have a stopper, but he still doesn’t understand what happened. Was the potion brewed wrong? Did Geralt test them and ended up poisoning himself?

“Knew s’not mint,” the witcher mumbles into the crook of his elbow.

“What do you mean?” Jaskier strains to keep Geralt sitting up, but the man just won’t _sit._ “Do you need an antidote?”

“S’nip.”

Since sitting up isn’t working, he moves on to search through the witcher’s potion bag, looking for what he understands is some kind of purifying agent. The rattling makes him miss Geralt’s slurring. “What?”

S’a-cadnit.”

“Cad...nit? I-I don’t know what that means. Geralt, help me here. What’s the potion you take for poisons look like?”

Geralt puts his shoulder against the ground and, of all things, scrapes his _face_ on the floor near the spilled kit. “Catty...th’cat plant.”

Jaskier is just about to start pulling his hair out when he puts two and two together.

Cadnit. _Catty plant._

“Are you trying to say ‘catmint’?”

Geralt’s drawn out hum is all he needs to stop everything and hold his aching head again. Geralt had been brewing catmint and knocked himself senseless with the fumes.

This really would only happen to them.

“...Should I be worried?”

“S’fine.” Geralt tries, unsuccessfully, to lift himself off the floor. “Just—really eff’tive.”

“'Effective'. Alright. So you’re, what, high?”

“Hnr.”

It shouldn’t be funny, but it’s _Geralt,_ serious and dour Geralt, wiggling around like a worm and mumbling incoherently to himself. He’s lucky Jaskier is too drunk to laugh at the ridiculousness of the occasion. A loopy smile is all his face can do. 

Then Geralt starts nosing the potion-stained wood.

“Oh no, darling,” he chuckles, drawing Geralt back from the catmint spill, “I think you’ve had enough of it now. Am I to think you’re not in any danger then?”

Narrow cat eyes look up at him. “Mmno.”

“Then come on. Up to bed you go.” 

Geralt follows his urging pushes at a slithering pace. Literally slithering, actually. It’s like his legs are useless, but that’s obviously not true because he bends his knees just fine. At the bed’s edge, he puts enough effort to hop up over sheets, but only that much, crawling the rest of the way to the headrest face down.

It’s a bit of a tight squeeze, but Jaskier manages to sit behind him, a candle brought closer to check that there really isn’t anything wrong. 

Of course Geralt refuses to remain still for him.

“Let me have a good look at you and I’ll let you be,” Jaskier huffs, and Geralt’s eyes and pupils go wide while he carefully parts white hair to see that there aren’t any swollen bumps or bruises.

Then, as if remembering himself, Geralt shoots up from the bed, startling them both. The candle almost falls right out of his hands.

“Contract.”

“Con—that’s _tomorrow._ And you can’t go out like this anyway, Geralt. No hunting until you get down from your high. I’ll put my foot down.”

“I’m fine.”

Jaskier blinks, incredulous. He can’t even think to argue with him because Geralt is so obviously _not_ fine, worming and wiggling around, seemingly incapable of standing on his own two feet. 

“Wait till morning,” he says instead. “I’m sure you’ll be better by then to do your witchering.” 

“I c’n do it now.”

As he says it, Geralt gradually bows down from his sudden upright position until his forehead touches his knees, and even then, he tries to throw his feet over the edge of the bed. 

It takes all of Jaskier’s strength to keep Geralt from sliding off and doing what he wants, no matter how useless he’ll be for it. He’s already winded from the great effort it takes to physically pin the witcher.

“Don’t, _hf,”_ the tired bard pants, “Don’t you want to sleep on a nice cloud-like bed for once? Look, feel the pillows. They’re ludicrously soft.”

He makes a point by slapping the one closest to Geralt’s head. It seems to get his attention as the struggling stops and he tries to bend and look at it. 

For a long moment, the pillow remains untouched, just an object deserving of his glare. Then one of his hands flops on its middle. Geralt gives an intrigued sigh as it sinks under its weight. 

“It is...nice.”

“Isn’t it? And the sheets are thick and warm, not some paper thin cloth that breaks if you tug it too hard.”

Slowly, he’s convincing Geralt to stay with all the nice things in the room that they hardly ever get to enjoy. The extra pillows. The abundance of candles to warm the room and provide ample reading light. The jug of clear water that sits on a small table for them to use, for free.

He knows he’s won when the witcher takes a fistful of the sheets and as if to cover himself.

“Stop, stop,” Jaskier admonishes with a touch of humor in his voice. “You haven’t even taken your boots off. Let me help you get more comfortable?”

By the time he’s done with stripping him down to shirt and smalls, Geralt’s managed to unfix the sheets from under the bed and wrap himself waist up in them. _Just_ waist up. 

Somehow, he looks _less_ ridiculous with his legs naked and twitching. It does make sitting beside him more difficult, as he keeps getting pushed nearly off. The bed won’t fit them both this way.

Jaskier thinks about that. It might be better if he sleeps on the floor then. Let Geralt have all the sweet comfort. It won’t be any trouble at all.

“Geralt, I don’t want to leave you alone while you’re like this, but I’m going to have to go downstairs and take up the innkeeper’s offer for spare sheets. It’ll be a quick trip, alright?”

Geralt rumbles something deep as he moves away.

“What’s that?” 

“No leave.”

“No...leave?”

At his confusion, Geralt repeats himself, louder from inside the tangle of the sheets. Comfortable as the bed is, it is still too small, Geralt _must_ see that.

“But, the—”

An offended, _“No,”_ cuts him off.

He stops justifying himself to take in the annoyed gruff of one catnipped witcher who wants for Jaskier to stay with him, on a bed much too cramped to accommodate them both. He's utterly ridiculous.

A lopsided smile makes its way to his face. “Alright. No leave.”

Figuring out how exactly they’re supposed to share the bed takes a lot of tucked limbs and sideways dancing, but he finds out that if he curls his arm over Geralt’s middle, and brings his chest to Geralt’s back, then they have just enough space to not risk falling off. It’s a shame that Geralt’s arms have to dangle off the edge, but he doesn’t seem so bothered. 

And maybe that’s in part the catmint’s fault, because every time their arms and legs connect, Geralt squirms closer—something he’s _never_ done in similar predicaments of the past—and when Jaskier throws the sheet over his head, his chest rumbles and his eyes close as if content. 

It’s the catmint making him act so contrarily. He needs to remember that. Geralt isn’t a physical person. In the morning, he might get angry—or morose. Depending on if he decides to be mad at his bad brewing ingredients or at _himself,_ for not being in control of himself, despite the impossibility of it.

Whatever it may be, it will wait until morning. Jaskier can feel himself dozing off.

Only, he hardly gets in a nap’s worth of sleep when he snorts awake, choking on his own spit, face down on the bed with his arms fanned out. 

And Geralt is no longer with him. 

“Hguh, fuck.”

Instead of panicking—which would be what he’d normally do—Jaskier sighs at length. He’s still drunk. He’s _really_ tired now. How did Geralt even sneak out without tossing him off? But the witcher couldn’t have gone too far. He didn’t even put on his boots. 

On the way down, the dwarf innkeeper whistles for him. It makes his ears ring for a good minute.

“Oy, sir bard. Are you looking for your friend?”

“Hmyep.”

“I figured so. I saw him walk out, blind drunk, muttering under his breath about some fellow who ripped him off.”

“Oh, he’s not drunk. Thank you for the tip.”

He leaves the dwarf in confusion, rubbing his eyes against the shining lamps and torches of the street. It’s a couple buildings down, but he makes it. Finds Geralt fumbling around in front of the herbalist’s shop, swearing up a storm at the man at fault for his current disheveled state.

It looks like he caught the herbalist right as he was locking up to go home. How inconvenient for them both.

“I told y’wasn’t _mint._ And I wus right. It fucked up m’potion. I want comp-comens— _fuck_ —a _refund.”_

“Geralt, would you please,” Jaskier mumbles lightly. He spots a few people stop and stare at the barefoot witcherman yelling at a cowed herbalist. “You’re causing a scene.”

“I want m’coin back!” Geralt shouts, but it’s made somewhat ineffective as he turns to pin his glare on Jaskier, and his catlike eyes narrow to a pouty grimace. 

He looks like a pissy cat.

“Alright, then I’ll get it for you. In the morning. Now come on. The man knows he made a mistake.”

“Hon-honestly.” Still fearfully intimidated, the herbalist brings shaking hands to shield himself. “It was a variety of mint!”

“Yes yes,” Jaskier waves him down, “But not the right mint.” Hopefully his unconcerned drawling lets the herbalist understand he’s not in any real danger of getting beaten. Just his purse. He steps to his displaced friend. “Geralt?”

Geralt huffs, shoulders raised to his ears.

_“Geralt.”_

At the tone, he drops the issue, _and_ his shoulders. It’s really surprising how easily Geralt lets go of it because _he_ tells him to.

But Jaskier is not going to think about it now. _Now_ is time for bed.

“Good, let’s go. You and me, we’re going to get some much needed sleep. And you best remember that if I’m not allowed to leave, _you’re_ not either. Understood? Give me a verbal answer.”

“...Un’erstood.”

 _“Very_ good. For that, I’ll buy us breakfast too, how does that sound?”

His eyes ache. That’s the first sensation that comes to him waking up. Like he drank two vials of Cat in a row and strained his eyes in a wink of sudden light. 

The other thing is warmth. The kind of warmth that makes him sweat under his clothes, though at least he’s just wearing his underclothes. What he doesn’t get is the damp patch of fabric stuck to his back. 

He also feels like he ate sandpaper. That might be because he tested his potions last night—

Oh, _fuck_ his potions. Fuck the mint. Everything’s coming back now. Every embarrassing detail of the night. 

Tucking his knees higher, he feels a separate set of legs bump his calves. 

The embarrassment peaks, and right along with it, dread.

He shouldn’t have acted that way around the bard. He had no control of it, he knows, but he could have tried. He could have meditated when he started feeling strangely out of his skin. But everything became so bright and muddled and textured so fast, and Jaskier _helped._

He’s familiar, so familiar. Geralt’s face burns thinking about how that familiarity felt _good_ and not at all a terrifying beast that would sooner bite him in the ass than comfort him. 

It’s not the first time he’s put himself in an uncomfortable situation, nor will it be the last. For once, he’s glad he didn’t go through it alone, that it was with Jaskier closeby and willing to— _nanny_ him. 

He shifts just a smidge up and a beam of sunlight lands right on his sore eyes. “G’h, fuck.”

Jaskier tenses up behind him. He moves back as much as he can, which on a bed this narrow is hardly a finger’s width of space. 

The cool air that meets Geralt’s sweaty back chills him to shivers. 

“Geralt? I should—”

“No leave.”

It’s what he remembers most of last night. Feeling distressed that the bard would disappear if he left his sight. There’s no reason he would, but that fear—that sudden panic—gripped him, and it grips him now. 

But Jaskier does not leave. He breathes into Geralt’s neck, the long hair’s there tickling him lightly. 

“Alright,” he says, pressing close again, “But I did say I’d get us breakfast. And the herbalist’s refund. And anyway, don’t you have a contract you want to do?”

Geralt covers his face with his arm. His back is so warm.

“Later.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you're interested, you can find me [@seventfics](https://seventfics.tumblr.com) on tumblr and [@the_sevent](https://twitter.com/the_sevent) on twitter.


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